What I learned about (STEM) Education Stateside

I was fortunate to be able to attend the American Association of Colleges and Universities Conference in Arlington, Virginia at the start of November. Whilst this was a STEM Education conference, there were many aspects of the presentations and discussions that would apply across many disciplines.

Equity is everything

The first thing that really struck me about this conference was that issues of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) were front and centre of pretty much every talk that I attended. There is a firm belief that unless we ensure that education is serving ALL of our communities, then we are failing as educators. We are failing the students, but we are also failing our nation by not nurturing talent wherever it is found. There was a strong feeling that access and diversity had improved significantly; we are getting outreach and admissions right, however more attention needs to be paid to ensure equity for students once they join the programme.

Aligning behaviours with values is an effective way to bring about change and to help students to realise the benefits of what they are working on, aligned to their own values.

Sense of belonging was a strong theme, but it was accompanied by Enjoyment and Success. We were introduced, through an interactive tool, to the idea of students sharing their top four personal values as a way of getting to know each other, and also understanding how to best work together. This approach has been proven effective especially for underrepresented groups. Aligning behaviours with values is an effective way to bring about change and to help students to realise the benefits of what they are working on, aligned to their own values.

STEM Identity

There was also discussion of the importance of students acquiring a ‘STEM identity’ — whilst the US system is different in that students don’t pick their major on entry, of those that initially intended to study STEM, often less than half of them continued, with the remainder either switching majors or dropping out. Interestingly, students almost never switched into STEM. This was a classic example of outreach and admissions serving their purpose, but then students not persisting with the subject. Sometimes because it was too challenging, but more often that students felt that ‘it wasn’t for them’. There are certainly benefits of the US system of a more general ed year 1, so that students can then choose to switch majors without losing time (and money) or feeling like they have failed.

STEM for Social Justice

Many of the more successful approaches included authentic experiences (especially in the lab), linking the classroom activities to future careers, and using near-peer mentors. It’s worth noting that all the mentor schemes that I heard about paid their mentors for their time. I didn’t hear of any developments that included ethics or sustainability, however there were a number of projects that incorporated tackling ‘grand challenges’ or ‘social justice’ which could be considered as similar.

Impact and response to artificial intelligence

Another theme of the conference was (unsurprisingly!) artificial intelligence (AI). There were discussions about how to develop an AI response framework. Interestingly, it needs to start with understanding the mission of HE, and our philosophical position before delving into the what’s and how’s of technical and pedagogical implementation. We were also challenged to think about the in-built inequalities in the data that underlies many of the AI tools — and to not blame the technology as it is often built on structural inequalities that already exist.

Rethinking assessment

There were some very interesting presentations on alternative approaches to assessment, where student participation and self-reflection, avoiding single point failure, and ungrading were all discussed positively. This was especially interesting to me as there were many commonalities with the approach that we are taking in Physics for Curriculum Redefined. I was very pleased to be able to share our ‘work in progress’ in a poster session and receive positive feedback on the likely benefits for students in terms of reducing stress and addressing inequalities. This gave me positive encouragement to overcome the systemic challenges that we are facing and keep the faith that our approach is the right one.

The Soul of STEM

Finally, there was an inspiring keynote on ‘conversations with the soul of STEM reform’ which encouraged us to think about the overarching purpose of our work, and that STEM education is not served well by STEM rigor mortis! This rigidity in holding onto the past, often badged as rigour, is extinguishing the joy from both the learning and teaching of our disciplines when society and our students have changed. Burnout occurs when work becomes devoid of meaning and ensuring that we put the soul back into our work that is human centred should be our ultimate goal.

As I wait at the airport for my long trip home again, I feel refreshed and energised to think about the possibilities of what we might achieve together for our students, and also for ourselves. It is also heartening to know that even though I am 3500+ miles from home, the things that we care about, and strive to improve for our students and the future of education, are essentially the same.

Prof Samantha Pugh (Professor in STEM Higher Education)